Pebbles in the pond

Solving Challenges with Just One Fresh Thought

Do you get frustrated when you look at a longstanding problem or challenge and feel that you just don’t know how to solve it?

Is it possible that you do know how to solve it, but deep down inside you realize that the solution is likely to involve long, hard effort? Perhaps the situation seems so complicated that you’ve refused to even begin to think about how to untangle it. Are there complexities to the situation that have you considering easy solutions or quick fixes instead of dealing with those complexities?

How can you find your way out of this loop and move forward?

What works for me is to reconsider the situation and have “just one fresh thought on the matter” each time I’m considering what may seem a longstanding challenge. Instead of pressing for an ultimate solution immediately, I begin to consider and pursue step-by-step progress. The part of my mind that insists on easy solutions usually sees this as a reasonable compromise.

Accepting this creative compromise also refocuses the energy that was being expressed as frustration so that it now manifests instead as progress. I’ve found I begin to actually make progress the longer I restrain from lurching for a final solution while adding relevant observations, and that the probability for right decisions is noticeably higher.

Perspective and opportunity

Do you consider challenges as opportunities? What if we imagine that the universe is a grand hotel in which the waiters are continually bringing us new and exotic foods to sample: how inappropriate it would be to refuse some strange-looking platters and demand only to be given the same plate as yesterday?

Remember, change is necessary to evolution. Look ahead at what you will think of your life at its end: you will probably not want to look back and say that it was cozy and dull.

React positively to what seems today to be a major impassable problem, knowing this may lead to an important step toward evolution that you will likely recognize as such at some point in the future.

Take at least one step each day toward progress. Start with a baby step.